On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:18 PM, Peter Gutmann <pgut...@cs.auckland.ac.nz>wrote:

> >To say the same thing the other way, I was always amazed that the Nazis
> were
> >unable to figure out that their crypto was broken during WWII.  There were
> >experiments they could have done, such as sending out a few U-boats under
> >strict radio silence and comparing their longevity to others.
>
> Cognitive dissonance.  "We have been...", sorry "Ve haff been reassured zat
> our cipher is unbreakable, so it must be traitors, bad luck, technical
> issues,
> ...".
>

As I recall the history it was direction finding (HF-DF) that was causing
specific U-boats to be lost.  Crypto was more global---resulting in
rerouting convoys, etc.  See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_direction_finding.

After late '42 or so, U-boat radio silence would have indicated that using
the radios was a problem---even during the time that the Naval Enigma was
not being broken.


-- 

Chuck

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